


Martyred Echoes

by Inert_PenMaid



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inert_PenMaid/pseuds/Inert_PenMaid
Summary: "There was nothing grand about this girl, that was true - and yet everything about her mystified him from the first."An extension of THAT Hut scene, as told by Kylo Ren.





	Martyred Echoes

The words volunteered themselves, as though they were not his. “You’re not alone.”

 

He allowed the martyred echoes of his voice to tread the unguessable wilds between them, like a rowboat dislodged out onto open water. He waited. Ren had told himself his use of this connection...this thing, and his interest in it, was merely scholarly in purpose; even the wisest practitioner of the Force remained a student in some way, after all. But there was selfishness in it too. And he had gone to great lengths to disguise this from Snoke, no longer his obsequieous apprentice. 

 

Ren cursed himself. There were times that this undisturbed place that they had found for themselves within the Force felt as though it was simply that; as though the stepping stones to it were footwells that only they could fill, no-one else. But now a mass formed in his throat. Who could say that this was private indeed? Who could tell that the no man’s land between them was not being enjoyed from crossways the Galaxy, exposed to supervisory eyes? Every time he reached out, he felt the vertiginous lean of risk grow stronger. Snoke doubted him, he knew that now. And he certainly had enemies in the circles of the elite. Enemies that would take great pleasure in decommissioning the reputation he had built upon the bodies of countless. The Knights of Ren, his  _ trusted _ brethren. That bastard, Hux. 

 

_ Jedi Killer _ , he had even earned the honour. 

 

But those were Kylo Ren’s great accomplishments, not Ben Solo’s. 

 

In the beginning, they had both been inventive with ways to maim the connection. They had both wanted to rid themselves of the other. They had shot at, pricked, pierced and torched it. But one day they surrendered to it, when it proved indestructible. 

 

At last, her reply shivered across the interface. “Neither are you.”

 

He had not expected that. He stifled his intrigue.

 

Besides the pulsating of firelight, any detail in the scavenger’s surroundings was unintelligible. The peripheries contorted as though round the rim of a spyglass, but inside the glowing kaleidoscope was the sharp and familiar image of  _ her _ . As she drew a waterlogged rag to her chest, Ren thought he noticed the flicker of her heart - right there, at the opening of her vest. The distance between them was boundless, but he sensed her life’s blood; the kicking, thrashing adrenaline in her veins, as intimately as a papercut. 

 

_ She is afraid of me.  _ But he knew that. He was used to that.  _ Afraid of what I know, of how much to tell me.  _

 

He wondered what his body betrayed to her. 

 

Rey wet her lips. “It’s not too late.”

 

Ignoring the impulse to delay there, he hoisted his gaze. Those thoughts were useless. In the end, it would always come down to this - Light and Dark. 

 

“You’re new to this ancient order,” Ren delivered the truth softly. “Eager to impose yourself upon its legacy. I remember that...that hunger. I  _ understand _ it -”

 

“No -”

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” he said. “It’s not all it seems; the Force, the Sith, the Jedi. What has any of it shown you? Nothing. Since the day we met, I knew…” he did not know what he knew. “This life could never make you happy. Rey. Spare yourself a lifetime of disappointment.”

 

“Like yours, you mean?” She swatted the air. “Leia would despair to hear you speak. What about hope?”

 

The mention of his mother stalled him, to his irritation. To hear it was something like pain; something that years of training should have relieved.  _ Cheap trick. A smart girl.  _ He took an affected pause. “Hope is as useful as luck. What’s the use in hope, when you’re staring down the barrel of a blaster, Rey? The Resistance cannot hope to last another month. You know it. They know it. Leia best of all. You don’t have the artillery, the fuel, the funding: we outnumber you man to man. The Resistance’s only asset is  _ you _ . Your power. Your talent. But you’re young and you don’t know what to do with it. So you make the wrong choices.” He had said too much. Ren regained himself. “Han Solo indulged in luck. Look where it got him. Don’t repeat a fool’s mistake.”

 

Rey’s micro-expression of disgust was not lost on him. “You don’t mean that.”

 

“Do you know it?” Kylo Ren forced himself to smile. “Or do you  _ hope _ ?”

 

That should have done it. He had half-expected to find himself alone in his quarters, then, but nothing changed.

 

Instead, the girl scrutinised him. A rope of tangled black hair slipped free, clinging to the crease of her lower lip. There was a muted squeal of leather, and he realised his fists ached. He released at once. The leather exhaled as he flexed and unflexed his fingers. She was getting the better of him again. This was not what he had planned.

 

“What do you want from me?” he snapped. “Every time I turn around, there you are. I find myself alone, you’re there.”

 

“I’m not doing this, remember?  _ The effort would kill me _ .” A pause. “You talk about a lifetime of disappointment. But you can’t be older than - I don’t know - thirty?” 

 

“ _ Almost _ , scavenger.” He briefly thought of Chandrila, and the astral metropolis that was the place of his birth. It was likely Rey had never seen a city. He smothered that inconvenient thought. “So we’re swapping childhood anecdotes, now, are we? Hideouts and broken bones? I’ve had plenty of them. No thanks to you.” Ren gestured.

 

Rey regarded her handiwork. “That night, I heard the voice of the Dark side. How can you love such a thing so evil?”

 

“Love?” He echoed. “To a beetle, a boot is evil. To a man, a boot is necessary. It's not a question of love.” 

 

“It told me to kill you. The Dark Side.”

 

That fascinated him. “And did you want to?”

 

“I -”

 

“Don’t lie to me, Rey.”

 

The girl seemed to shrink.

 

Ren shrugged. “It called. You answered. We do what we must to succeed.”

 

“ _ No _ . I could never…” she fussed with her shawl. “I am sorry."

 

There was nothing grand about this girl, that was true - and yet everything about her had mystified him from the first; even begrimed, her threadbare training rags crisping by the heat of the pitfire beside them. No matter the circumstance, she vexed him. Prickling in his own robes, Ren mopped his brow. 

 

He flinched with disbelief.  _ Impossible.  _

 

Suddenly, the crudely assembled structure of a stone hut divulged itself to him. The cool ventilation of his own quarters had vanished. Could he smell the moss on the slick stones, hear the percussion of rain wriggling over the modest shelter, or was he imagining it? He wanted to leap to his feet and circumnavigate the place, to confirm its reality. His reality. Instead he stayed deathly still. He did not trust Rey quite so far as to share this revelation. And he admired her enough to fear what she might do. She could shoot him for true, this time. 

 

Salt hit the eaves of his mouth. The sea.  _ So this is Skywalker’s island,  _ he thought. He shoved aside the terrible obligation to fulfil his destiny.

 

“I don’t want your apologies,” was all he could manage.

 

_ What do you want, then?  _ A voice nudged. He looked at the girl. 

 

She was so close, so... authentic.

 

Ren slowly became aware of something else. Something he had intermittently smothered and disregarded all his adolescence. But he had made a vow. He had said the words. He had promised to never be seduced. 

 

In his high rank, he had always been careful about who he went to bed with. His guard had slipped only a handful of times, when he could not longer stifle the afterthought of sex, in corners of the Galaxy that would not incriminate another ordinary face.

 

“Your life is not over,” Rey continued. “You’re not bound to Snoke. Leave him. Leave that place.”

 

He choked a laugh. “To be sure. Why don’t you leave behind your arm, or your leg, while I’m at it?”

 

“Now you’re being be an arse.”

 

“I _’m not being an ass,_ _I_ ’m telling you the truth _._ ” He willed her to understand. But how could expect her to? Young, naive, inexperienced. Her prejudice against the Dark was impenetrable as a jungle, dense and complex and unforgiving. A victim of Luke’s censored education. She could never understand. But he had to try and make her.

 

He heard himself speak. Like caroming downhill, once he had started he could not stop:

 

“My earliest memory of Snoke is from when I was...four, maybe five years old.  _ Five _ . They say his influence began with the foetus living in Leia’s womb, but how could I possibly remember that to tell you?” He absorbed himself in the fire, dreading to look up and find himself alone again, the miraculous transmission cut short. “I clearly remember standing by a river. I don’t know where my governess was - distracted, maybe, probably. Just another day that Han and Leia were too important for. 

 

“The river bid me to drown myself.” He could still hear the belch of the water, the call to the riverbed. “I resisted. I challenged. I wanted to live. And that small show of defiance saved my life. Convinced Snoke that I could be of greater use than a bloated corpse belly-up in the water...” He side-glanced, shifting uncomfortably. “He was testing me. Don’t you see? I owe him all I am.”

 

“Not all,” Rey said softly. “There’s good in you, still. Good that he can't take credit for.”

 

He ignored that. “To apprentice with Supreme Leader Snoke is the highest privilege.”

 

“Snoke’s apprentice or not. I  _ feel _ the conflict in you. Ben - you’re powerful and talented.  _ You have only made the wrong choices _ .”

 

He grimaced. “Something tells me your precious Resistance won’t see it that way.”

 

A pale, slender hand took his and squeezed. “ _ I _ see it that way.” 

 

The crackling interstice between them seemed to surge and short-circuit all at once. Suddenly, its barbed perimeters were gone. He had felt the seismic sparks ricochet from every synapse, between every cell in his body; but now there was quiet and sense, and in the panoramic of all existence he could feel only  _ her _ . Ren gawked at their hands. It was impossible, but here they were, together. After a moment, he braved a tentative graze of the thumb. Her knuckle was scabbed with labour. He was still wearing gloves. He wanted to touch her, just as she had wanted to touch him. 

 

Understanding felled him suddenly. “How long have you known?” 

 

The girl was shaking to his touch. “I didn’t. Not properly. Until now…” the loathing face that he had encountered in the forest was gone, streaked with emotion. “Ben. You cast a shadow. You're really here.”

 

He turned. The hut seemed to expand in the light like a diaphragm, and the amorphous shape undulating against the convex stone writhed, became two shadows, then one. He did not remember standing. He did not question it. At this moment, he did not want to question anything. "I suppose I am," he said softly. 

 

Rey had not yet pulled away from him, he realised. 

 

_ Was she worth your while?  _ He imagined his master would purr later, when he was inevitably summoned to the throne room for review. The contents of his apprentice’s mind would greatly interest Snoke tonight.  _ Was the pleasure of a squealing waif a fair trade for all your glorious potential in the Dark? _

 

Kylo Ren decided it was. 

 

“Take off my gloves,” he said. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading folks! Let me know what you think (pretty please?)


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